Electro-optical systems often have a variety of optical, electronic and mechanical elements; these elements sometimes form separate sub-systems. By way of example, electro-optical systems such as digital and cell phone cameras include optical elements (e.g., lens elements) that form an optical sub-system and electronic elements (e.g., signal processors) that form a digital sub-system. These sub-systems cooperate to capture an optical image and produce a digital picture, for example.
Designing the electro-optical system to perform one or more intended purposes may be a difficult task. In order to meet design goals, the electro-optical system is often over-designed, adding cost and development time to the design process. Further, when an electro-optical system includes both optical and digital sub-systems, these sub-systems are designed and optimized independently. Typically, for example, the prescription for the optical sub-system is selected and optimized first, and then the signal-processing sub-system is separately designed based upon the output from the optical sub-system.
Commercially available software design packages may be used in developing the foregoing prior art electro-optical systems. For example, the optical sub-system may be designed and optimized using Zemax from Zemax Development Corp. or CODE-V from Optical Research Associates. The digital sub-system may be designed using MATLAB by MathWorks Inc., or customized C/C++ code for example.